¹tn Heb “and the sleep of the king fled.” In place of the rather innocuous comment of the Hebrew text, the LXX reads here, “And the Lord removed the sleep from the king.” The Greek text thus understands the statement in a more overtly theological way than does the Hebrew text, although even in the Hebrew text there may be a hint of God’s providence at work in this matter. After all, this event is crucial to the later reversal of Haman’s plot to destroy the Jews, and a sympathetic reader is likely to look beyond the apparent coincidence.
²tn Heb “the book of the remembrances of the accounts of the days.”
³tn Heb “they”; the referent (the records) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
⁴tn This individual is referred to as “Bigthan,” a variant spelling of the name, in Esth 2:21.
⁵tn Heb “to send a hand against.”
⁶tn Heb “honor and greatness.” The expression is a hendiadys.
⁷tn Heb “said in his heart.”
⁸tc The final comment (“one on whose head the royal crown has been”) is not included in the LXX.
tn Heb “a royal crown on his head.” The reference is to an official decoration or head-dress for horses in royal service. See HALOT 2:506; DCH 4:477.
⁹tc The translation reads with the LXX wehilbiso (“and he will clothe him”) rather than the reading of the MT, wehilbisu (“and they will clothe”). Likewise, the later verbs in this verse (“cause him to ride” and “call”) are better taken as singulars rather than plurals.
¹⁰tn Heb “and let them call.”
¹¹tn Heb “let fall.”
¹²tc Part of the Greek tradition and the Syriac Peshitta understand this word as “friends,” probably reading the Hebrew term rahamayw (“his friends”) rather than the reading of the MT, hakamayw (“his wise men”).
¹³tn Heb “from the seed of the Jews.”